The present disclosure relates generally to communications networks, and more particularly, to Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).
Demands for increasing link speeds and computing speeds have driven a variety of specialized computer networking architectures. There are networking architectures, such as Ethernet, which are widely utilized for communications based on Internet Protocol (IP). There are other networking architectures, such as Fibre Channel (FC), which are widely utilized in Storage Area Networks (SANs). FCoE is a technology for sending Fibre Channel traffic over Ethernet in order to enable a single networking technology to be utilized for both IP communications and SANs.
FCoE may use, for example, encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to leverage Ethernet networks while preserving the FC protocol. The International Committee for Information Technology and Standards (INCITS) recently released standard FC-BB-5 (“Fibre Channel, Backbone-5”, Jun. 4, 2009), which covers FCoE. FC-BB-5 describes enhancements to Ethernet bridges in the path between FCoE endpoints. The bridges implementing these enhancements are referred to as FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) snooping bridges. FIP snooping bridges address certain Ethernet data plane connectivity concerns, however, there still exists manageability issues that are not covered by the standard.
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